After the United States government celebrated the capture of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, President Donald Trump issued warnings about what might come next. “Something will have to be done about Mexico,” he said. “American dominance in the Western hemisphere will never be questioned again.”
The US government has subsequently pushed for US forces to accompany their Mexican counterparts in operations targeting fentanyl production. But the history of US military intervention in Mexico makes the presence of foreign troops, under any pretext, politically untenable.
The arrival of US troops in the past has signalled political instability, suffering for ordinary people, and in the most extreme case, massive loss of territory. Before the one-sided Mexican-American war of 1846–48, most of what is today the states of California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico had been part of the newly independent Mexican republic.
